Nintendos Miitomo app lands in March, next mobile game stars best known character

Nintendo’s half-social-network, half-game app for mobiles has been given a March release date, with fans able to pre-register for it from 17 February.

Miitomo is a playful, cute alternative to the likes of Facebook and Twitter, where friends are represented by their Miis and can share ‘surprising’ secrets by answering silly questions. (For instance: “if you saw a nose hair sticking out of your friend’s nose, what would you do?”) To tie in with the launch, the Japanese publisher is replacing rewards program Club Nintendo with My Nintendo, and promising a special Miitomo bonus to anyone who signs up between 17 Feb and the March launch. Nintendo president Tatsumi Kimishima fully outlines the new program in his third-quarter briefing.

Nintendo says that more than 200 million Miis have been created worldwide, so the potential audience for Miitomo is substantial.

If light-hearted Bebo alternatives aren’t your thing, then instead make Yoshi noises over the Wall Street Journal’s revelation that Miitomo will be followed by four more smartphone apps before the end of 2017 – and the first of those will be a game starring “one of the company’s best-known characters”. That surely has to mean Mario, Zelda or Donkey Kong. If it’s Wario, we riot.